hi every one - rather a strange question for you all - which i would appreciate any thoughts on - it may seem a tad odd - but please bear with me .

i have a phenomia going on here that is puzzling me - that of capacitors - charging and discharging themselves - and in some cases giving negative voltage readings - i have at the moment two capacitors being used for the ongoing experiment - both of which are new - have never had a voltage applied to them ( so this will hopefully rule out capacitor soak ) - the first is a one farad /24v and the second is a 10,ooo uf /40v - the 1 farad one is connected directly to a dipole antenna of circular configuration - eg a loop insulated in the middle - with an arm of the dipole connected to each terminal - the second is a stand alone capacitor - in a plastic casing with nothing connected to the terminals - the voltage on the capacitors is monitored daily - and before any test runs are commenced each is shorted AND grounded to a proper earth ground - for some considerable time ( hours ) - but as soon as they are brought into the house they start to pick up charge - running into many hundreds of Milli volts (dc )

today i measured the larger of the two and it had swung from a positive to a negative voltage of 45.7mv the previous reading 5 days ago ( have been busy else where ) being + 43.3 mv !

OK - now i have been told by so called experts that this phenomena is impossible - however it is happening - other wise i would not be wasting my time or yours asking this question

as to WHY i am doing these tests ?? - sorry guys if i told you that it would detract from the discussion

I had the same phenomenon, but the capacitors are not charging themselves. This is related to some kind of "memory". For example, when suddenly discharging large electrolytic capacitors with low value resistors, I could read almost 0V with the multimeter, but after some time I would read a greater voltage.

hi thanks - i am fully aware of the capacitor soak phenomina - however as i stated these have never been charged to their working volatge - and where specifically checked and found at zero volts before leaving the shop - much to the amusement and puzzlement of the sales people - mind they are getting used to my somewhat odd requests .lol

surly a capacitor will only have a memory if it has been previously charged - and i take every care to totaly discharge them to ground - in the two under discussion this is the first run - so does not apply

that was what i was thinking, maybe your meter is imparting a tiny current into the caps. by "capacitor soak", do you mean dielectric absorption?

do you know what the caps are made of? what's the dielectric? maybe it's acting as a sort of battery? just a guess

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The capacitor was about 4700uF. A tiny current in the order of nA (the biasing current for my digital meter) would not charge the capacitor to that point. Don't forget capacitors by construction have a leakage resistance, normally in the order of MOhms.